Passing 1A was a mistake because it doesn’t address the root causes of our congestion and infrastructure problems. As we all know, the pro-1A campaign was heavily bankrolled by the growth industry because RTA overcharges the citizens so that we might continue to undercharge new developments for their impacts. The best “thank you” the growth industry and elected officials can give the citizens who approved 1A is to start working on the major causes of our congestion and backlog. We need them to1) stop approving developments that outpace our road network capacity2) require new developments to fully fund their impacts3) require new developments to be pedestrian,bicycle and transit-friendly.If they don’t tackle these issues, then I predict – even with RTA — our congestion will be worse in ten years, not better.RTA was a battle about growth subsidies. The Pikes Peak Region cannot sustain the current level of under-funded growth and maintain our quality of life. Our time wasted in traffic congestion is an “off-the-books” cost of growth. The projects on the RTA list give us a better picture of the hundreds of millions of dollars in road network capacity enhancements growth is costing us. We can add that to the hundreds of millions in utility infrastructure growth subsidies revealed to us earlier this year.These costs of growth are hidden from us because the growth industry wants the community to continue subsidizing its costs of doing business. But the citizens are catching on to the deception, and they overwhelmingly say they do not want to subsidize growth. SavetheSprings will continue to spotlight and publicize growth subsidies, to educate elected officials about how ill-advised these subsidies are, and to wrest control of the decision-making about growth impacts and our future from the growth industry and put it back in the hands of the community.SaveTheSprings is a grass-roots advocacy group formed to preserve our quality of life in the Pikes Peak Region.Dave GardnerFounder, SaveTheSprings, Preserving Quality of Life in the Pikes Peak Region
